thexavierinstitutefandomcom-20200214-history
Wanda Maximoff (canon character)
Character History Of Noble Stock Wanda and her twin brother, Pietro, were raised by a gypsy couple wh ose name they still bear - Django and Marya Maximoff. The twins were raised without awareness of their true heritage, instead relishing in the sense of family and security they gained from the Maximoff. While her brother was more outgoing, more apt to impress, Wanda had always been the more obscure and artistic of the twins, doted over for her quiet nature. Indeed, she was always looked upon as fragile, intelligent, talented, but otherwise nothing special. She was initially the smaller and more sickly of the pair and was often restricted to remaining inside their family home, where others would bring her food and dote upon her to prevent her becoming tired. As adolescence dawned on Wanda, she began to realize that she had the ability to make strange things happen, in a way far different from her brother. She would later learn that the strange circumstances of their birth had left her with control over events and phenomena. As the twins' differences became harder and harder to hide, their fellow villagers became too afraid to accept them - especially Wanda, whom they had always viewed as harmless. A drought fell upon their village, and while Wanda truly had no control over it, her abilities were so mysterious to the villagers that she was blamed for the fact that they were starving. One night when she was young, she was dragged out by her hair into the village square, and they demanded that she raise her curse from the village. For the people of Wungadore, the color red was a color of shame, reserved for criminals and adulterers. They covered her in a red robe and cast stones as her until Django came forward and stopped her, though he was struck in the eye and blinded in the process. Into the Fire The people of Wungadore soon formed an unruly mob and tried to overpower the twins - they locked Django and Marya in a prison and though they were unable to catch Pietro, they detained Wanda until she caused their dry fields to catch fire. Overwhelmed by smoke, it appeared that they were soon to be killed before they were saved by a certain Erik Lehnsherr, known better as Magneto. Initially afraid of the new prospects with which he presented them, the Maximoff twins fled. Life on Run Fleeing Transia and making their way across Europe with a handful of false identities, disguises, and thieving tricks, Wanda and Pietro made a living of petty crime for as long as they could. However, while Wanda was still working towards her powers, she was still physically weaker than her brother and struggled with life on the run, often relying on her brother to get them out of trouble. She began to feel great bitterness not only towarss the people of Wungadore, but humankind, who had shown them nothing but judgment and threats. As she became stronger and stronger, she began to harness her abilities with the intention of vengeance. Because of this, when Pietro stated his intention to seek out Magneto and join him, Wanda did not protest. After finally accepting M agneto's offer, the twins were separated for perhaps the first extensive period of time. Because of the scope of her ability, Wanda was ordered to travel to various places around the world as a messenger for Magneto, often spending extensive periods in foreign countries under various disguises. One such mission was infiltrating the isolated kingdom of Nova Roma in South America, where she came upon and made an enemy of Amara Aquilla, who she would again come across when the Nova Roman princess took up residence at the Xavier Institute. Upon returning to New York, Wanda found her brother Pietro missing. Without any idea where to find him, Wanda mistook Pietro for dead and kept her seat as a senior member of the Brotherhood, though he eventually returned - while Wanda made no mention of it, she felt some level of relief. She entered the Brotherhood initially just to avoid being separated from her brother, but soon came to embrace her father's vision. While she dabbled many times in petty terrorism of Xavier's students, she now possesses a deep-seated resentment for them. A Formidable Foe Becoming among the leaders of the Brotherhood, Wanda found a suitable lieutenant of sorts in fellow member, Alice Kensington, who Wanda admired for her loyalty, and her ability to get a job done. Because of this, the pair gained notoriety for being both convincing recruiters and merciless criminals. Wanda came to find that Pietro often handled his responsibilities as senior member of the Brotherhood lightly, so she began to take up the perceived slack by becoming doubly harsh with recruits to the Brotherhood. She could not very well understand her father's respect for the Institute and its inhabitants, and so felt very confused when one evening, he ordered that his followers help to rescue the Institute from an attack by the Purifiers. Wanda did as she was told, but with resentment and condescension. Because the Brotherhood has taken the brunt of the blame, Wanda feels that they are the Brotherhood's softer, weaker counterparts, and serve only as an obstacle. Over Stormy Seas When the Brotherhood relocated to Genosha, Wanda continued to plan on antagonizing the X-Men for vengeance against her father's direct orders by collaborating with Lillith to create a genetic mixture of their DNA to create Xerxes, a reality and gene manipulating mutant who nearly caused the deaths of many of the X-Men. He was killed by an explosion created by a team of X-Men who intended to sacrifice themselves, but wanda found herself strangely driven to save them from a fiery death. Because of her disobedience, she was excommunicated from the Brotherhood by her father, and returned to New York to seek vengeance on the X-Men for her scorn blaming them for it. Seek and Destroy In the year following her excommunication from the Brotherhood, Wanda returned to New York and contemplated her new rise to power that would win back her father's favor. She initially existed as a vagrant, but eventually found herself in the hideout of a mutant by the name of Ulysses Braunfeld, whom she had come across in a seedy bar. Ulysses, though an older man, was a brilliant mind and powerful mutant who had developed the Spyderbots, which he was using to gather information on the mutants of New York. He shared with Wanda a vision of turning New York into a Mutant City, which she soon adopted as her own ambition, She enlisted his assistance in helping her plot to gain control of Cerebro, and to use it to amplify the X-Wave, a bioelectric signature emitted by mutants carrying the X-Gene. Ulysses initially accompanied her to help her with her task, but was swayed when he found a young woman who turned out to be his granddaughter living in the school. He reneged on the plan, but not before allowing Wanda to kill thirteen people. Powers and Abilities Probability Manipulation The Scarlet Witch possesses the mutant power of affecting probability fields. By a combination of gestures and mental concentration, she creates a finite area of reality-disrupting quasi-psionic force, which upon reaching its intended target, causes disturbance in the molecular-level probability field surrounding the target. Thus, unlikely phenomena will occur. Among the many phenomena she is able to cause are: the sudden melting of gun barrels, the spontaneous combustion of any flammable object, the rapid rust or decay of various organic and inorganic materials, the poltergeist-like deflection of an object in flight, the sudden evacuation of air from a given volume, the disruption of energy transmissions and fields, and so on. Her range is limited by her line of sight. (She cannot watch a live television broadcast and cause a hex-phenomenon to occur at its point of origin.) Contrary to certain accounts, the Scarlet Witch cannot levitate, shoot magical energy concussive blasts, or transmute elements. The Scarlet Witch's ability to control probability and "bend reality" has shown itself in the ability of opening holes to alternate realities, or creating wrinkles in time, though she has not been able to these things consciously and may not for some years. Because of the mental instability caused by her childhood trauma, Wanda is especially susceptible to telepaths. Special Skills Impersonation Wanda, as she learned during her life on the run in Europe, is especially skilled at picking up an identity and running with it, inserting herself easily into whatever role she chooses to play. Some surmise that this is ability to disconnect from her true identity is also a remnant of her trauma. Language Living on the run also forced Wanda to adapt quickly to new surroundings, one aspect of which includes picking up languages. While she is fluent in English and Romanian, she is proficient in French, German, and Swedish. She has also picked up a limited understanding of other languages, including Arabic. Fine Arts Unbeknownst to most, Wanda is actually a gifted painter and harpist, both hobbies she picked up as a young girl. She does not tell this to most, as it does not jive well with her new identity as terrorist and senior member of the Brotherhood, but it is often of use to her in her many disguises. Fighting Wanda is a skilled fighter, owed partially to the fact that she has very little regard for pain, whether it be towards others or upon herself. She has a high threshold for pain and does not hesitate to inflict it upon others. During her time on the run and in hiding, she became familiar with the use of guns, combat knives, and throwing knives as weapons. Weaknesses Wanda is cold and unsympathetic towards nearly everyone, but also has times where her emotions - especially her desire for vengeance - cloud her better judgment. This often leads to her lashing out in abrupt and violent ways. Once, when fear was induced in her by mutant Gabriel Betancourt of the Xavier Institute, rather than cowering, it caused her to lose control and flood all of Liberty Island with a large tidal wave. Personality Wanda is a very prideful woman, and insults to her pride are not taken lightly. She is often vengeful and thirsts to prove all who defy her wrong. When her father, Magneto, excommunicated her from the Brotherhood for her disobedience, she spent an entire year creating a grand scheme to prove him wrong and win back his favor. Wanda fails to connect with people, as she does not care for anyone enough to place them above her goals and immediate desires. She has in the past been sexually promiscuous, often using feminine wiles as a means to an end, but has sense seemingly put the tactics aside and considers it a base desire and a waste of time unless there is truly nothing else to be done. Wanda does have moments of what she considers weakness, in which she impulsively does the right thing, one such example being saving the X-Men from dying a fiery death as they imploded the warehouse where Xerxes was hiding. Relationships Erik Lensherr Wanda began her connection to her father, Magneto, with great hesitation, and at first only grew close to him because her twin brother insisted it would benefit them. However, she came to admire his ideals and his adherence to them, as well as his vision for mutantkind. Wanda is often desperate, moreso than her brother, to prove herself to her father, and because of this often makes very poor decisions. Pietro Maximoff As twins, Wanda and Pietro have always been very close. Over the years spent on the run together while Wanda had still not come to terms with her powers, Pietro was her sole protector. He is one of the few people Wanda is able to have a fair discussion with, and among the even fewer for whom she has any respect. While the pair differ greatly (Wanda is dark and brooding, while Pietro is arrogant and more of a joker-like sort), Wanda has the deepest loyalty to her brother and considers any enemy of his an enemy of hers as well. Alice Kensington Alice Kensington, also called Looking Glass, the single person whom Wanda has consistently perceived as something equivalent to a friend. Wanda felt something akin to guilt when she considered working with a former member of the Brotherhood named Lilith, who nearly killed Alice. Wanda consistently chooses Alice's partnership in her schemes if at all possible. She perceives Alice as her next-in-command and entrusts her with tasks she would not hand over to anyone else. Quotes "I thought we gave them specific orders to get to training, and half of them are busy banging each other outside. If you don't whip 'em into shape, I'll run 'em out crying." (XI-3, Brotherhood Kitchen, 08/11/08) "You've usually shaken off your hangover and hauled ass back to your own bed by now. Don't tell me you're losing your touch already - I thought you'd have at least a few more years left in you." (XI-3, Brotherhood Quarter, 09/07/08) "You're surrounded, you know. But I suppose I should've expected that Westchester's resident goody-goodies would enjoy having an audience for their benevolence." (XI-3, Senator Kingsley's Home, 06/18/09) "I hear your students are a motley bunch of little scientists... And funny that! Lilith and I have done some experiments of our own - with much more success than your brats science fair projects may ever have." (XI-5, Holding Cell, 07/11/11)